Howard Udell: Helped Hundreds Of Veterans With Legal Problems

Extraordinary Life

Udell, a former resident of Howard Udell of Westport, died Aug. 2 of a stroke.… (Handout )

September 03, 2013|By ANNE M. HAMILTON, Special to The Courant, By ANNE M. HAMILTON, Special to The Courant

Howard Udell had a solid, successful life as a corporate attorney, but his real contributions came after a painful professional experience that led him to help hundreds of veterans with their legal problems.

"It was the most amazing redemption, because he ended up having such a profound effect on veterans," said Margaret Middleton, who with Udell founded the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center, based at the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Haven.

"We are the first organization in the country to integrate legal services into VA care," said Middleton, and CVLC has since become a model for veterans' facilities in other states. She estimates that more than 800 clients have been served since the center opened in 2009.

Udell, a former resident of Westport, died Aug. 2 of a stroke. He was 72.

Udell was born in New York on July 17, 1941, attended Hunter College and graduated from New York University School of Law in 1965. He worked for several years at a New York law firm, and then joined Purdue Pharma LLC, based in Stamford, a pharmaceutical company whose best known products were Betadine, an antiseptic lotion, Senakot laxatives, and OxyContin, a painkiller. In 2003, he became the firm's general counsel and head of its legal department. "He was smart, wise, and scrupulously honest and people trusted him," said Michael Friedman, former president and CEO of Purdue.

After the U.S. Department of Justice received complaints that Purdue had not warned patients sufficiently about the dangers of OxyContin, prosecutors charged Udell and two other Purdue executives in 2007 with responsibility for failure to warn. The charges were made even though none of the officers had knowledge of the misrepresentation — which amounted to remarks made by a few representatives in the field to some physicians.

The executives pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, called the "responsible corporate officer doctrine," which allows a person to be convicted even if he or she did nothing wrong, but supervised people who did. The law allows a conviction "if someone else does something wrong in an area where you have no responsibility and may not have known something about it," said Robin Abrams, vice president and associate general counsel of Purdue. As a "no fault misdemeanor ... it's very hard to come up with a defense," she said.

Among the penalties imposed by the court was a requirement that the defendants spend 300 hours doing community service. "It was very unpleasant for Howard, who was scrupulously honest and careful, but we endeavored to make the most out of it," said Friedman, who was also charged.

Udell and Friedman decided to volunteer at the VA Hospital. At first, the two men went to the VA's Errera Community Care Center, counseling veterans on how to interview for jobs or how to write resumes. But as veterans learned that Udell had a law degree, they started asking for help with their legal problems. Some were being evicted; some were appealing a dishonorable discharge, while many had credit or income tax problems that made it hard to get a fresh start. Many veterans also had substance abuse issues, which compounded their legal problems, and few had lawyers.

"It was kind of overwhelming," said Friedman. The two executives went to the the VA once or twice a week and soon discharged their court obligations, but Udell wanted to continue offering legal advice.

He met Middleton, an idealistic lawyer who was thinking of suing the VA for denying benefits to veterans. Instead, she offered to help Udell, and wrote a grant proposal that provided funding for the Veterans Center, which offers legal services at no cost. It opened officially in 2009 with Middleton as executive director. Later that year, Udell had a serious stroke, but he recovered and returned to the center, which today has five employees as well as a panel of lawyers who represent veterans pro bono.

"He invented this practice out of compassion and an ability to do something for people in need," Middleton said. "He found a way in which his talents could be used. ... He was extremely brilliant, and had an unbelievable legal mind, and had unlimited capacity to be present for other people's difficulties. He wasn't paternal; he was genuinely interested in other people."

Udell was married to the former Judith Jacobs, who survives him, along with two sons and six grandchildren.

For many years, Udell was on the board of the Vitam Center School in Norwalk, and also served for 25 years on the board of the Sackler Medical Faculty of Tel Aviv University. He also donated money to establish a program on law and democracy at the university's law school. "He was a brilliant person, very gentle, with high moral standards," said Nili Cohen, former provost of the university.